by Cédric Scherer

🗓️  September 17, 2023
⏰  09:00 - 17:00
🏨  Grand Hall K

Communicating data through meaningful and easily accessible visualization is a critical competence for most data-related roles including data scientists, analysts, scientific researchers, and managers. A well-designed graphic is able to inform, spark engagement, explain patterns, and drive decisions and actions. At the same time, poor choices in the design process can complicate interpretation or even, intentionally or unintentionally, mislead the audience.

The aim of this course is to demystify the creative processes of data visualization design to turn data into a meaningful story. Participants will learn helpful tips and tricks to create appealing and informative data visualizations that are not “just showing the numbers” but successfully tell a story. We will cover principles of good data visualization design, explore different options to display data, and discuss ways to guide and engage viewers with the aim to create impactful graphics. The course also features sessions on picking suitable yet beautiful colors, what to consider when choosing and pairing typefaces, and the layout of graphics, also in the context of dashboard building.

This course is for you if you:

• want to understand and learn the art of communicating data with impactful visualizations,
• aim to improve your data visualization design to create effective and informative graphics, and
• are willing to spend a bit more time choosing the right chart, proper color palettes, and suitable fonts along with additional elements to guide the viewer.

The course will cover principles and tips on how to create compelling graphics that communicate the data in a clear and effective way with a focus on your main findings by engaging and guiding your viewers. No prior preparation is necessary for workshop participants, as the course content is designed to be of a general nature and does not require any prior knowledge or background learning.

Please take a moment before the course to think about chart types that you are using on a regular basis and the most common struggles when designing data visualizations. Note them down and bring a few examples if possible (either the original graphics, no matter if polished or not, or simple drafts in case you are not allowed or don’t want to share them). Feel free to share the information in the Discord channel (see below) as well.

As this workshop is set up as a non-coding course, you do not have to bring your laptop but a few blank sheets of paper and a few pens of different colors for the group exercises. If you prefer to code rough data visualizations rather then drafting them by hand, feel free to set up your laptop accordingly, depending on the programming language and graphics library of your choice.

We will be using Discord as our main communication method during the workshop. To make the process go smoothly:

• Please sign up for an account at discord.com if you don’t already have one.
• Make sure your display name is the one you used to register for the conference. In your “About Me”, put the name of your workshop(s).

Closer to the start of the conference, you will be invited to join the posit::conf Discord server. Once you’ve accepted the invite, we will add you to the channel(s) for the workshop.

For those who want to code visualizations, we will also set up a Posit Connect environment in case you want to share your notebooks this way.

Dr Cédric Scherer is a data visualization designer, consultant, and instructor helping clients and workshop participants to create engaging and effective graphics. As a graduated ecologist, he has acquired extensive hypothesis–driven research experience and problem–solving expertise in data wrangling, statistical analysis, and model development. As an independent data visualization designer, Cédric later combined his expertise in analyzing large data sets with his passion for design, colors, and typefaces. Cédric has designed graphics across all disciplines, purposes, and styles applying a code–first approach, and regularly talks about data visualization design and ggplot2 techniques. Due to regular participation in social data challenges such as #TidyTuesday, he is now well known for complex and visually appealing figures, entirely made with ggplot2, that look as if they have been created with a vector design tool.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.